


the boy who always keeps me from jumping off the bridge

by bravelikealady



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wrestling, Childhood Friends, M/M, ambrollins - Freeform, hounds of justice, the shield - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 00:49:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11748654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelikealady/pseuds/bravelikealady
Summary: "In these dreams it’s always you:the boy in the sweatshirt,the boy on the bridge, the boy who always keeps mefrom jumping off the bridge.Oh, the things we invent when we are scaredand want to be rescued. "--Richard Siken, I Had A Dream About You





	1. Dean I

**Dean**

> Now I'm walking again to the beat of a drum  
> And I'm counting the steps to the door of your heart  
> Only shadows ahead barely clearing the roof  
> Get to know the feeling of liberation and release

 

It is almost Christmas break. 

Dean doesn’t want the break to come, doesn’t want to go home, but it will anyway. It always does. Between the two of his friends, he has almost avoided home the entirety of sixth grade. He doesn’t have to think about that here, wood chips scratchy along his back as he lays on the ground, flanked by the only two people he cares to know. They’re lounging in the domed jungle gym. Their spot, most of the other kids have learned by now. Their heads are all pressed together, like some kind of three pointed star, waiting to burn. It’s all laughter as they watch their breath coil into fog in the crisp air. Roman and Seth have opened the gifts they all exchanged, Dean hasn’t. Roman knows what Dean’s house is like, Seth doesn’t. And so Roman brought him a few new comic books to read and a card from his mom. Dean knows there’ll probably be a little money in there. It used to make his face burn bright red. Now, it just is. It doesn’t feel like a gift. It feels like Roman trying to take care of him, like Roman’s family trying to help without getting in the way.

 

It hurts just like home does. Just hurts different. 

 

This year, Seth got him something, too. It surprised him. Dean didn’t talk much when Seth transferred to their school last year. He didn’t think he’d talked to Seth all that much this year either, but there was a feeling, a familiarity… Not just Roman’s new friend. Dean’s new friend, too. Lying there he still felt nervous at the weight of the small, well wrapped gift in his pocket. He was embarrassed that he didn’t have anything for Seth.

 

“I’m sorry I didn’t get anything for you guys,” he blurted, maybe too suddenly.

 

“It’s okay,” Seth told him excitedly. “I just hope you like it.”

 

“You never have to get me things”, Roman said.

 

Dean felt his ears turning red. “Okay… thanks.”

 

He could feel Roman looking at him, because they’d had this argument before. Sometimes Dean wished he didn’t have any friends at all. Mercifully the whistle to signal the end of recess blew and they scrambled up to head back inside. They brushed the chips off of each other’s backs as they walked. When they got to the door, Roman goes in first and Dean makes to follow but Seth grabs his hand. 

 

“Hey.”

 

“Hey.”

 

“Will you call me over break? Just to let me know if you like your present?”

 

“I… yes.” 

 

“Good. I wrote my number inside the wrapping paper, so open it carefully.”

 

“I will,” he pulls the door back open and holds it as Seth goes through. He continues to hold it as the last few teachers head in with various items nearly abandoned on the playground for the next three weeks.

 

The rest of the day he slips his hand into his pocket and taps his fingers against the wrapping paper, delighting in the crinkle, and when he gets home the first thing he does is open it… slowly, carefully, not wanting to lose Seth’s number… not wanting to have to ask Roman for it either… 

 

Dean knows what it is before it’s entirely exposed. 

 

A leather bracelet like the one Seth had at the start of his first year here, a shark’s tooth binded to it on a bit of string. Seth had gotten it on vacation with his family. He’d told them all about it when Roman said he could sit at their small, round table outside for 5th grade lunch. Seth had remembered that Dean liked it… Now they’ll match. It made Dean feel… proud, he guessed. Or something. 


	2. Dean II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> flash forward: senior year

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this series will progress chronologically forward but sometimes the character's will flashback

Dean

 

> Let it down, let it down now  
>  It's much too late to make amends  
>  All I see, all I see now  
>  Is merely an echo of the end

 

 

Prom. He didn’t wanna go but Roman’s suit from military ball fit him alright and _blah blah we’re seniors, Dean,_ he fell for it. He doesn’t have the right shoes and the eyes of the chaperone taking tickets signal as much. He half expects to be told he can’t go in, but they let it go. He’d rather a fight than pity. Maybe that’s why an hour into it he finds himself on the balcony, barefoot on the grainy concrete, not even trying to be subtle about the flask he snuck in. He thinks he feels alive enough to go back in, to suck it up, to pretend it means something to him because it does mean something to Roman.

 

And then the glass doors come open, sound and heat spewing forth. And _him_. His body pressed against a wild eyed girl Dean recognizes from his art class. She’s a gum chewer, a smirker, and not much else from what he’s seen all year. She’s pushing Seth’s coat off of his shoulders, her bony fingers all he can see of her as Seth shoves her against the small shaft of stone out here, like he’s trying to absorb her. He feels his neck grow hot, like he’s angry at her, like he knows she isn’t his type.

 

“Company,” Whatshername whispers as Dean is trying to get his legs to move toward the door.

 

Seth turns around, smoothing back his hair, the dark curls falling over his eyes, unruly from the humidity of half a thousand teenagers in heat sharing one dancefloor. He laughs and it makes Dean angrier. He’s didn’t have the luxury of bold laughter, laughter cultivated in safe spaces, laughter swaddled, laughter told it could be anything it wanted when it grew up, laughter without fear of consequence, without fear of waking something, or giving itself away.

 

“Who got you in a suit?”

 

“Something funny, asshole?”

 

“Hey, hey, hey,” he steps forward, he places his hands on Dean’s chest.

 

The hair on the back of his neck stands up.

 

“Just having a good time. It’s senior year.”

 

“Yeah, got it,” Dean takes another swig from his flask and Seth rolls his eyes disapprovingly, despite the fact that he was ready to at least partially strip on this very balcony.

 

“I’ll find you in a minute, alright?”

 

The girl doesn’t even hesitate. She rolls out, leaving Seth and Dean alone. There’s room on the balcony now but they keep the same distance.

 

“You’re underage.”

 

“Thanks, man, left my ID at home, wasn’t sure.”

 

“I just mean… at least hide it, alright? You’re almost done, don’t throw it awa-”

 

“Fuck you,” Dean’s blood is boiling as he shoves past Seth. He doesn’t have his shoes, but he doesn’t care. His hand is on the handle of the door when he feels a tight grip on his bicep.

 

“Don’t grab me.”

 

“Alright.”

 

Seth lets him go. Even through a coat and a dress shirt Dean’s muscles aches in the place where Seth’s fingertips had been.  He doesn’t know why he doesn’t move. His hand is frozen on the handle, useless. The rest of him is white heat. Anger. Jealousy. Spite… Something. Something Seth.

 

He looks up at Seth: hair a mess, wry smirk absent from his face for once, the usual veil of performance absent from his mahogany eyes.

 

Seth steps closer. Dean doesn’t move. He watches Seth’s eyes flick downward and land on his lips. He is worried they’re trembling. They’re so close he can feel Seth’s breath on his mouth.

 

“The suit looks good,” Seth whispers.

 

Dean looks away, blood hot, heart pounding. He realizes he’s been holding his breath. Seth’s hand brushes his as he turns the handle and lets the lights and music drift out into the silence between them.

 

“Do you mind,” Seth asks, but he’s already slipping ahead of Dean and through the door.

 

“Ladies first,” he mumbles, eyes on his bare feet, anywhere but on Seth.

 

Now that he’s more than a little drunk he shuffles over to the food and is dancing despite himself.

 

“There’s my boy,” he hears, as Roman claps him on the back.

 

“Yeah, are ya happy,” he asks mockingly, outstretching his arms to gesture to his outfit.

 

“I will be when you put your shoes back on,” Roman laughs. “You look like you’re having fun, like I said you would.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get too excited.”

 

“I saw Seth’s here.” Roman pours himself a punch as he says it, avoiding Dean’s eyes, “it wouldn’t be bad to forgive him.”

 

“Roman…”

 

“I know, I know… but… weren’t we all happier then?”

 

“I don’t see what it matters,” Dean was louder than he intended. “We’re all done soon, right? You’ve got your football scholarship and he’s got… well… I’m sure he’s got… anything he wants.”

 

“Hey, man,” Roman extends his cup to Dean, “why don’t you spike this, forget I opened my mouth, and we do some dancing?”

 


End file.
